The ability to correctly identify individuals, especially when entering or leaving a country across national borders, has assumed increased importance in recent years due to the increasing threat of terrorism. However, the primary means for identifying and tracking the movement of individuals across borders is the use of paper documents, such as passports. Although the increased computerization of customs procedures has improved the ability to track the movements of individuals, the system is still only as reliable as the documents presented by travelers at customs desks.
Theft and fraudulent use are major problems associated with important identification documents, such as passports. For example, a stolen passport can be modified by a skilled forger to include a photograph of a person other than the passport's original owner and/or a new passport number. The person shown in the photograph is then, for all practical purposes, able to travel using the passport under the assumed identity of the original owner and/or a new identity. This may enable a person known to the authorities in a particular country to leave or enter that country undetected.
Theft of identification documents or documents that have an identification function may occur as a result of a burglary of an owner's place of residence. In some instances, the owner may not be immediately aware that their passport or other important documentation has been stolen, providing the thief with ample opportunity to sell the stolen documents, and for them to be modified and/or used fraudulently.
Further exacerbating these problems is the fact that, in many cases, new identification documents and documents with an identification function are sent out to their owners in the mail. These documents may therefore be intercepted and used fraudulently before the rightful owner is even aware that they have been stolen.
Additionally, many important identity documents have relatively long periods of validity, for example ten years or more. One reason for this is that the overheads associated with reissuing or revalidating documents are presently relatively high, for both the document holder and the issuing authority. Accordingly, it is inefficient and inconvenient to require document holders to reapply for replacement documents at shorter time intervals. The disadvantage of such long periods of validity is that they present an extended window of opportunity for the trafficking in valid documents for fraudulent use. It is, for example, possible for documents belonging to a deceased person to remain valid for many years after their death, unless some action is taken to cancel the documents rather than simply allowing them to expire.
The same problem exists with respect to other documents such as cards that are used to access accounts and in particular, credit cards. Fraudulent use of credit cards is a significant problem. Some issuing authorities have taken steps in an attempt to reduce the incidence of interception and fraudulent use of a newly issued credit card. For example, some issuers require an activation process to be executed before the card will be effective. However, this process is usually limited to requiring the recipient of the card to call an operator and provide some detail of the user such as their birth date. Unfortunately, the detail required is usually information that is relatively easy to obtain thus allowing theft of a newly issued card from a mailbox and activation of the card by a fraudulent user.
Accordingly, there is a need for a more secure means and method of verifying the correct delivery and possession of important documents, and in particular for limiting the circumstances in which identification documents and documents with an identification function may be fraudulently used.
It is also desirable to provide a means and method by which the legitimate holder of a document may conveniently and securely effect certain actions with respect to the document, such as renewal, cancellation and revalidation, thereby providing the document holder with greater individual control over the maintenance of the document.
Additionally, it is desirable to provide an efficient means and method whereby document holders are required to communicate with the issuing authority on a more frequent basis than is presently the usual practice, in order to increase the confidence of the authority that issued documents remain under the control of their legitimate owners.
Any discussion of documents, devices, acts or knowledge in this specification is included to explain the context of the invention. It should not be taken as an admission that any of the material formed part of the prior art base or the common general knowledge in the relevant art on or before the priority date of the claims herein.